Caldera’s DR gets OnSatellite of love

Caldera Thin Clients will be announcing today that its DR-WebSpyder – an embedded Internet set-top -- will be used by OnSat Network Communications in its private networks for satellite Internet access. The consumer end will consist of Caldera's v86-based graphical devices, with Inkotomi's Traffic Server network cache and OnSat's private satellite network. The service will offer email, voice mail, and even financial smart cards, according to Roger Gross, the CEO. A pilot programme was conducted recently with a number of ISPs in the US, and the service is now being offered worldwide. The vision is of low-cost access in areas where land-line access to the Internet is not available or extremely expensive, such as remote villages in sub-Saharan Africa where Startec, a South African company, is offering the package. Caldera Thin Clients [of Andover UK], together with Caldera Systems that focuses on Linux distribution, are subsidiaries spun off from Caldera earlier this month because Caldera was being perceived as a company out to get Microsoft, Random Love, CEO of Caldera Systems said. The case against Microsoft, which will feature a jury trial in Salt Lake City, gathered strength recently when it was extended to include the consequences of the practices Microsoft used against DR-DOS with Windows 9x, as well as Windows 3x. Caldera demonstrated at Cebit in March that DR-DOS could substitute for the underlying Microsoft-DOS in Windows 95. Microsoft has just asked for a further delay in start of the case, at present scheduled for June, as Microsoft is unable to provide immediately all of the executives Caldera wishes to depose. Steve Susman, one of Caldera's lawyers, deposed Gates for eight hours on videotape last November. ®